01-04-2019, 04:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-04-2019, 04:43 PM by danbrotherston.)
I find distracted pedestrians annoying too, sometimes I have to slow down, yell loudly, even wait behind them, but I could not care less about that, in the face of the many drivers who put my life in real danger every day for the same activity.
Complaining about distracted walking in this context is a false equivalence, distracted drivers kill hundreds and maim tens of thousands of Canadians, distracted walkers annoy the same number. But these are not the same thing.
When a driver looks down at their phone for 5 seconds on the average road in KW, they'll travel almost 100 meters, when I do the same thing as a pedestrian, I'll barely travel the width of some of our lanes.
If I'm looking down on my phone and walk head long into someone, I'll impart about 108 joules onto them, and I'm a big guy. If a driver does the same thing, they could impart up to 295, 745 joules onto whatever they hit, although most likely, whatever they hit will not absorb all the energy, and the car will simply proceed through whatever they hit.
These things are not equivalent. The fatality and injury numbers prove this out. The physics proves this out. The only place we see driving and walking being treated equivalently is by certain groups of people, who say things like "pedestrians and drivers both need to make sure our roads are safe".
/fully off topic
Complaining about distracted walking in this context is a false equivalence, distracted drivers kill hundreds and maim tens of thousands of Canadians, distracted walkers annoy the same number. But these are not the same thing.
When a driver looks down at their phone for 5 seconds on the average road in KW, they'll travel almost 100 meters, when I do the same thing as a pedestrian, I'll barely travel the width of some of our lanes.
If I'm looking down on my phone and walk head long into someone, I'll impart about 108 joules onto them, and I'm a big guy. If a driver does the same thing, they could impart up to 295, 745 joules onto whatever they hit, although most likely, whatever they hit will not absorb all the energy, and the car will simply proceed through whatever they hit.
These things are not equivalent. The fatality and injury numbers prove this out. The physics proves this out. The only place we see driving and walking being treated equivalently is by certain groups of people, who say things like "pedestrians and drivers both need to make sure our roads are safe".
/fully off topic